In this article, we discuss expertise by considering the activity of reading. Cognitive scientists have traditionally conceptualised reading as a single, well-defined task, namely the decoding of letter sequences into meaningful sequences of speech sounds. This definition captures a core feature of the reading activity at the computational level, but it is an overly narrow model of how reading behaviour occurs in the real world. We propose a more expansive model of expertise. In our view, expertise in general is best (...) conceptualised as a distributed process that takes place within a cultural-cognitive ecosystem. Our model allows for a more inclusive view of expertise in reading. We argue that reading is better understood as a manifold task domain that admits multiple reasonable criteria for evaluating performance. We draw on ethnographic data to show how our model allows for a wider appreciation of what expertise in reading amounts to in educational contexts. (shrink)

While the past decade has witnessed a proliferation of work in the intersection between phenomenology and empirical studies of cognition, the multitude of possible methodological connections between the two remains largely uncharted. In line with recent developments in enactivist ethnography, this article contributes to the methodological multitude by proposing an integration between phenomenological interviews and cognitive video ethnography. Starting from Schütz’s notion of the _taken-for-granted_ (_das Fraglos-gegeben_), the article investigates a complex work environment through phenomenological interviews and Cognitive Event Analysis, (...) drawing on distributed cognition and embodied cognitive science. The methodological integration is illustrated through the study of an adverse event in a highly specialised medical ward. Starting from a nurse’s task of administering medicine to a patient, the analysis tracks how a distributed cognitive system in the ward handles an adverse event where a pill becomes contaminated. The analysis demonstrates how complex decision-making processes depend on agents’ micro-scale embodied coordination, on their engagement with the material environment, and their anticipation of other agents’ intentions. It is concluded that ethnography can accommodate both cognitive and phenomenological research aims, while also contributing to the important mission of understanding successful responses to adverse events in healthcare. The article further contributes to patient safety studies by demonstrating how safe medicine administration itself can lead to increased risk, hereby pointing to a problem of incompatible safety logics as a source of medication errors in healthcare. (shrink)